Welcome To District Eight
by tobuildahome
Summary: "I hope impossibly that if I were quick enough, I could somewhat trap the warmth in my fingers, using the last of my body heat to keep me warm for the rest of the journey home." Follow the 74th Hunger Games through the POV of a tribute from District 8.
1. Prologue: A Cold Winter's Day

Hello, everyone. This story is a bit new for me, because I've never written fanfiction about the Hunger Games before. So we'll see how this one turns out, it's more like an experiment than anything else. But I do also plan on continuing this story regardless of whether or not others like it.

This is the story of the Hunger Games, the story of the girl on fire and the boy with the bread. The story of the downfall of Panem. It sticks to the plot fully, so it is definitely canon. The catch is that this is the Hunger Games from the perspective of a tribute in the 74th Hunger Games. It is the untold tale of a tribute from District 8, and the hardships they suffered through just to sustain themselves. I hope you all enjoy it, because I'm pretty pleased with it myself!

_(And yes, Objections is still being continued. I'm just having a little fun, is all.)_

Although I wished I owned it, I own nothing of the Hunger Games, it strictly belongs to Suzanne Collins.

All right, here we go, please enjoy! And may the odds be _ever_ in your favor!

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><p><em>"Life is life, fight for it."<em>

Prologue

**When I am finished working, I am exhausted. **

I let out a much needed groan after I walk out of the sweatshop. The first thing I notice is the way my breath crystalizes into the thin, cool air, immediately vanishing into the evening sky. I stretch out my hand and lift my palm to where the hot mouthful of air had just disappeared, yearning for the heat that had escaped my body. I hope impossibly that if I were quick enough, I could somewhat trap the warmth in my fingers, using the last of my body heat to keep me warm for the rest of the journey home. But my unsuccessful effort does not prevail, and I am only left swishing my fingertips in the icy air, freezing my skin to the bone. It is a particularly freezing day even for District 8, and I am left with nothing but a small jacket to shield me from the frosty wintertime wind. What a cruel reality.

The next thing I notice are the delicate crystals descending from the ominous clouds above. They are light, gentle, beautiful yet dangerous. My cold hand is still outstretched, capturing one of the wonders in the middle of my palm. It disintegrates almost immediately, leaving a bitter liquid running down the edges of my fingers. It is undoubtedly snow, judging from the way my hand shivers involuntarily after making contact with the glassy, bracing water. I make note of this and begin my walk to the main corner, worrying that the new flecks of snow aren't the opening performance to a considerable snowstorm.

The sky is a faint lavender color, gradually growing auburn at the bottom of the crease where the sky meets the land. The foliage that covers the harsh landscape is sewn by icy droplets of sleet, and if it weren't for the black haze of smoke whispering out of the factory chimney, it would almost remind me of the winter wonderlands they talk about in child fairy tales. But it is only the landscape of one of the pawns of Panem, filled of starving families and murders around every corner. It is simply nothing but a wasteland of snow and smoke, so I almost laugh at the thought of it ever becoming beautiful or divine. I shake the child fairytales out of my mind once more. Panem is most certainly the opposite.

I remember I don't have time to stop and 'appreciate' the view. It's 8 PM, and my family will be pondering where I am. Once I am a minute or two late, mother immediately assumes my corpse has been instantaneously seized by the Bodysnatchers. Although it does disgust me to imagine my family weeping over the news of my death, I also can't help but wonder what they would do if I really had passed away. The thought instantly leaves my head as soon as I conjure it up. I can't imagine what it would be like without me. My family obviously needs someone to support them, and I have no choice but to rise up to the position. So I just straighten my thin jacket and continue sauntering away from the workshop, praying one day I will never have to leave my family in such poor conditions. All I can guess to hope for is living long enough to feed everybody, at least until my younger sister gets old enough to sustain our household.

Our part of District 8, usually referred to as the Haze, is always crawling with employees heading out of their occasional twelve to thirteen hour shifts. All men, women, and children with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many who have long since stopped trying to scrub the black dust out of their broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces. They've stopped trying to redeem their worn appearances ages ago, when hope of ever looking unchanged after work the factories is all gone.

We sit in the crowded, husky quarters for hours on end, each trace of youth in our skin fading away in the misty lights. The conveyor belts run constantly, ticking slowly with unfinished materials that need the fingers of our laborers to mend. The items, mostly clothes, run back through the other side of the machine, looking impeccable in both design and quality. Anything less results in an immediate job expulsion. And the limited number of jobs just adds to the overwhelming pressure. Occasionally I prick my fingers on the thread used for mending, but I have no choice but the stuff my bleeding hand into the hem of my shirt and vainly attempt to soak the red liquid quickly enough to continue working. In the factories there are no bandages, no assistance, and most certainly no compassionate people keen enough to help. We fight for ourselves here, risking our jobs is just too much of a gamble no one's willing to take.

I turn around to take a last lingering look at the factory, at least for today. The bulky, stonework building kisses the sky, blocking the view to the North of the field. There is a crowd of people, all rushing and begging to move through the two main doors. It's always problematic getting out in time until they deadlock them, mainly because of the number of workers who need to get home to their own hungry families. I guess I'm just lucky because I left earlier. I did, however, get permission to leave first. Anyone else who tries to take it easy and leaves early earns twenty lashes, something I had to grotesquely learn from past experience. I jam my eyes shut, just for an instant, recalling the horrific experience of venomous whips tracing my back and sensing the metallic aroma of my own blood running down my hind. I hastily open my eyes back up and notice every person is nearly out of the building.

I should get a move on. Tomorrow is the day of the reaping, and there is no time to dawdle.

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><p>(Thanks for making it this far. I should acknowledge the fact you guys still have no idea who the main character is, but all of that is coming up in the next part. I mostly wanted you all to notice the writing style and beginning plot before getting too ahead of myself. That way you can back out easily if you want to. I'm fairly happy, so please stay tuned for more parts! And as always, a good review always does some justice!<p>

_- ToBuildAHome_)


	2. Chapter 1: Nightmares

Hello, again! Two parts in one day? Really? Yes, I did upload two parts today, but don't get too hopeful. It will almost never be a reoccurring thing. I just had a lot of free time today, it being Saturday and all. But yes, it is two parts and in this part we learn a bit more about our character's fears and their dark worries. My apologies, I originally had planned to introduce my character a bit more clearly in this part but I decided to wait until morning to finally tell you all a bit more about the protagonist. So I'm sorry it's not really mentioned in this chapter, but it will certainly be in the next one!

While I really, really would love owning the Hunger Games, sadly, I don't. It all belongs to the very lovely and talented Suzanne Collins. I'm not making any money off this.

Thank you all for reading, and _hopefully_ you will like this part!

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><p>"<em>Dreams, dreams, they mock us with their flitting shadows."<em>

Chapter One

**I awaken with a loud drumming in my ears, sweat clinging to my cold body, noticing the light of dawn not even close to touching the shadowy night sky.**

I sluggishly remove myself from the bitter, sooty wooden floorboards of our trivial apartment and sit upright, completely entangled in my thin, worn out blanket. The amount of light nonexistent in this room is almost sinful, leaving me depending on my proprioception and my remembered way of getting about the room to help me stand. My left hand immediately rises to my left temple, which is pounding against my palm almost machine-like with continuing fluctuations. I examine my forehead for a while, making sure there are no tender bumps or other ailments. Or worse, blood.

There is nothing wrong. My head seems completely fine, other than the minor ache from both the throbbing and the negative advent of not being able to see. I notice my threadlike sleeping clothes (not nearly warm enough for the weather conditions) are sodden with what can undeniably be my own sweat. I notice I am nearly freezing, my toes are numb to the point of being undetectable and the rest of my body feels abnormally chilled as well. The only problem is the temperature of my head, which is most certainly not cold. It is a deep warmth that I didn't even know existed. Once again I try to lie back down on my floor-bed, hoping to drift off back into an uninterrupted slumber. Only then I realize why my head is pounding, why my body is soaked, and why I feel so peculiar.

_My nightmare._

It all rushes back to me at an alarming rate. I remember all of it.

Although the terrifying images of my bad dream begin to dawn on me, I am frightened, but not startled. It is always this way, every year, on day of the Reaping. I always have that one nightmare, that one hallucination I cannot control, no matter how many times I try to stop it from entering my thoughts involuntarily. It is almost like a freight train, full of terror and fear. It will not stop until it reaches its destination: my subconscious. I nearly hate myself for letting it in, for not stopping it this time. But I know it really isn't possible. The dreams will always come, whether I want them to or not.

But the dreams from last year were not ever as corrupt as the one I just experienced. My body starts trembling uncontrollably, and I am not sure if it's from pure panic or lack of heat. But all I can focus on is the horrific nightmare that I'm not sure I will ever forget. I brush the sticky strands of my hair out of my face, and I sit still, my breath hitched in an irregular pattern.

I'm not in District 8 any longer. I am standing in the vast arena of the Hunger Games, blood smeared across my filthy face, the intense sunlight blazing in my eyes, and my hunting garments worn from travelling hours on end. It is almost too bright to see where everything is, and for a brief moment I panic because I wonder if I will get jumped during this pathetic moment where I cannot find anything or anyone. That's when, thanks to an enormous puff of cloud that blocks the sun for an instant, I can fully intake my surroundings. What I see fills me with a intangible mess of emotion. Sadness, rage, anger, disgust all rush through me at once, and for the longest time, I feel as if I cannot breathe.

I see hundreds- no, _thousands_ of dead corpses lined across me, all neatly stacked and orderly packed into rows. They are all soaked in inexplicable amounts blood that streams across every one of their malformed faces, down to their naked bodies, and filling the ground around them with the dark, thick plasma. I cannot control my bodily functions and my knees immediately give way to the forest floor. I cannot think, I cannot move, all I can do is stare despairingly at the consequence of genocide in front of my face. "Who did this?" Are the only three words I can manage to croak out.

"Well, you did… my dear." says an eerily calm voice right behind me. It is dark, cold and foreboding, and I turn my head slowly to find the owner to the threatening voice. I am surrounded in a half-circle formation by past tributes of the previous Hunger Games, _all of which are not victors_, I note. That only leaves one option: they were murdered, tortured, maimed and killed by either the Capitol or other tributes. How can they be here? They are dead. But then my tear-filled eyes notice more the seemingly unfortunate tributes and they are exactly the same as the corpses. They are naked, covered in their own dark blood and they all give me a menacing look that says the same thing._ You did this. You did all of this. You monster._

And then my eyes catch that of the only animated person in the group. And it is the same, icy voice coming out of his chapped, pale lips, the same appearance I have acknowledged so many times before on Capitol television, and the same person that has kept Panem under the Capitol's control for years. It is none other than President Snow. He has the same piercing blue eyes, the same stony, mocking appearance he's had for years, but something's altered this time. Something is much, much different.

He's holding a deadly javelin in his hands.

All I can manage is a slight, almost inconspicuous _"What?"_ before the spear is headed towards me, the tip of the blade on its end nearly before it touches the square of my heart…

And then it ends. I don't mind, because truly I think I don't want to remember what happens to myself. I am back to my unforgiving reality, my heart thrashing inside the cage of my chest, and my fingers reaching out for a light source, any light source, to keep me from going insane at the cost of my own dreadful dream. I need a disruption, I need anything, because the mental images of broken figures before me keep bursting up back into my head, and I cannot settle down. My body is still ice cold, but my beating heart is scorching hot. My fingers trace lightly where the javelin was simply centimeters away from my body, ready to impale my heart and make me suffer like those of which I murdered, slaughtered, and destroyed. Much to my utter relief I finally uncover a box of matches and as fast as my unsteady fingers can manage, I light a tiny, luminescent fire finally giving the dusky area a light source.

I focus on just the flame for a couple moments, soaking in the heat and light radiating from its core. My body no longer feels freezing, the way it used to, but somewhat warm and comforted. I want to steal this spark endlessly, to keep it inside my thin pajama pocket and yield it out whenever I feel alone or fearful. I want to always have this little heartening light anywhere I go, to tell me it will be okay, to tell me I will be fine, I will live. But I know I can't, and suddenly out of both a combination of disillusionment and fury, I blow out the tiny, soothing glow, leaving a trail of smoke pirouetting into the high ceiling.

I feel alone once more.

After all this time, the nightly sky does not display any hint of brightness caressing the air and I note it will be lengthy until I will finally drop back asleep once more. I hear the stirring of my brothers and sisters in their own, soft cots, snoring lightly and whimpering in their slumber. I realize, with a pang of sorrow in my heart, when the dawn arrives, this could be the last time they will ever have me, the last evening I will ever spend here in the Haze, and the last time I will ever let everyone of them know I love them so, so much. I want to remain with them, even at the cost of starvation or poor working conditions in the factories. Tears suddenly start rolling down my cool cheeks and I am suddenly weeping quietly into my blanket, my breath so cold I can once more see it crystallizing in the air.

So I rest back, silently sobbing on the frozen, rigid floorings and envision that if I could ever stop the sun from rising, I would. I would never allow sunrise to come, keep the moon from ever leaving, and stay with my dependent family until the very end. I could still have a chance of being unconditionally safe with my household, provide for them forever and live our lives without constant fear of The Capitol.

But, likewise, this is my cruel reality, and before I even comprehend it, it is finally the morning of the Reaping to the 74th Hunger Games.

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><p>(Thank you all for getting this far now! I am actually happy with this chapter, but I want to get your opinions too. In the next chapter we will finally learn of our main character's name and life, so please stay tuned. After all, it is the Reaping tomorrow, and who on earth would miss that? Certainly not the rest of Panem. Thanks again for reading, and a review always does do some justice!<p>

May the odds be _ever_ in your favor,

_-ToBuildAHome_)


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